


(in a time when) your word was true

by zjofierose



Series: star, star verse (YOI poly verse) [7]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Background Relationships, But He Doesn't Realize It, Christophe Giacometti & Victor Nikiforov Friendship, Christophe Giacometti is a Good Friend, Developing Friendships, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Light Angst, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, Makkachin Lives (Yuri!!! on Ice), New Year's Eve, POV Victor Nikiforov, Possibly Pre-Slash, Pre-Canon, Victor Nikiforov is lonely, Young Christophe Giacommeti, Young Victor Nikiforov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:21:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25236850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zjofierose/pseuds/zjofierose
Summary: In which Victor Nikiforov learns the value of becoming vulnerable enough to make a friend.
Series: star, star verse (YOI poly verse) [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596319
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13
Collections: YOI Training Week





	(in a time when) your word was true

**Author's Note:**

> This is my fic for Training Week Day 1 - Mentors and Support. Yes, this is *mumble* months late. Yes, I am posting these fics out of order. I blame *gestures vaguely* everything. 
> 
> This one's for Tutti, since she likes the fic this precedes so much. <3
> 
> Part of the Star, Star verse, which is my Otabek/Victor/Yuri/Yuuri OT4 series.
> 
> Many thanks to @sequencefairy for ensuring that all my accents were in the right places. <3
> 
> PLEASE SKIP TO THE END AND READ THE NOTE if you have any concerns about Makkachin!

**Unknown number:** Bonjour Viktor, ça va? 

**Me:** ça va bien, merci. who is this?

**Unknown number:** Ah, pardon! This is Christophe Giacometti - we met at Europeans? Georgi gave me your number, I hope you don’t mind.

**Me:** pas de problème, petit. how can i help you?

**Adorbs baby skater:** Well, I’m starting my second year in seniors starting in the fall, and I was hoping you wouldn’t mind giving some free advice for next season?

Viktor smiles down at his phone, crossing his legs where he sits on the love seat in his studio apartment. He remembers little Christophe; a talented young skater with the face of an angel under a riot of blond curls, green eyes huge above a sweet smile. It’s been a couple months since then, but he remembers Chris calling to him from the crowd after Victor had claimed his gold, cheering him on with an adorable flush on his cheeks. 

**Me:** bien sûr, chéri. what’s up?

**Adorbs baby skater:** My performances this year were safe. Next season, I want to mix it up. I hear you’re good with surprises?

Victor leans back against the cushions and laughs. This should be fun.

\---

“What did he want?” Georgi asks a few days later at the rink, stretching along a bench as Victor laces up. 

“Hmm?”

“Christophe,” Georgi sighs. “I gave him your number?”

“Oh!” Victor ties off his laces and steps onto the ice. “Yes. He wants advice on next season.”

Georgi makes a face. “Sorry. I should have made him tell me what he wanted first.”

“Oh, no, it’s fine, Gosha,” Victor waves a hand dismissively. “He wants to shake things up, said he thought I was the person to ask about surprises.”

Georgi gives a snort as he speeds up and takes a warm-up jump. He lands it, spreading his arms for balance. “Well, he’s not wrong. What sort of surprise are you going to pull off for our cherubic little Swiss goatherd?”

“I don’t know.” Victor’s tone is thoughtful as he moves into the patterns of his free program’s footwork. They’ve just got Worlds left next week, and once those are done… the off-season stretches before him, long and boring, full of missed schoolwork and “resting” so that he’ll be fresh for the start of the new season in the fall. He hates it. “I’ll have to come up with something.”

\--

_ Tell me what you had in mind _ , Victor emails a month after Worlds, new gold medal hanging from a nail in the wall of his studio apartment. He’s got a schedule that says he should be able to finish his School Leaving Certificate by the end of the summer and a list of work he has to finish to do so, and he’s got a print-out of a Federation-approved set of exercises he can do over the summer that will keep him fit while allowing his body to rest. He’s spent the last fortnight with Georgi in Koktebel, drinking and lying on the beach and watching Gosha flirt while trying not to be bored only three weeks after the end of the season. 

_ Sorry for the slow response _ , comes the answer two days later,  _ I was trying to put it into words, but really, I don’t know _ . 

Victor frowns. That’s not particularly helpful, if he’s honest. He tries again.

_ Tell me about your last season. What did you like? What did you dislike? What did you feel? _

The response is faster this time, coming after only a few hours, when Victor’s cooking his nutritionist-provided chicken-breast and cabbage for dinner, Makkachin lying on the floor and making mournful eyes at his food. 

_ It was fine? I felt like I skated it well, and it got better as the season went along _ . Victor nods, remembering how Chris had climbed from 14th at Europeans to 10th at Worlds.  _ Technically, it was achievable, but it had room for me to improve. _

Victor plates his food and settles at the table with his latest tabloid. He slips Makka a piece of chicken and reaches for his computer. 

_ But? _ Victor types, and hits send.

_ But I don’t want to do another year of tights and classical, savez-vous? _

Yes, Victor thinks, he knows what Chris is saying. 

\--

“So, okay,” Victor says to him later in the summer, and hears Chris’s  _ hmmm _ through the crackle of the international phone line. “Hear me out. What’s the hallmark of new skaters?”

“Unoriginality,” Chris answers immediately, and Victor snorts. “Except for you, of course.”

“Yes,” Victor sighs, “except for me. And I suppose you’re right, but that’s not what I was thinking of.”

“What were you thinking?” Chris’ voice has shifted slightly lower than Victor remembered it from when they met. It’s a subtle reminder of the current vastness that is the two years of age and experience between them. 

Victor rubs his finger across his lower lip. “It’s risky,” he says, “your coach might not like it.”

“ _ D’accord _ ,” Chris says, “go on.”

“Most newer young skaters are focused on skills,” Victor says, “it’s how they beat out the other junior skaters and advance to the senior level. It takes time and maturity to get to the point of being able to really connect the skills to the music, to get your presentation scores up. But,” he pauses, thinking, picturing costumes, steps. “But your jumps are fine. They’re not perfect, but they’re good enough. So, for this year, what if, instead of focusing all your training on the technical elements, you picked something artistically challenging?”

“...like what?” Chris asks, but there’s a flicker of excitement in his voice, and Victor smiles. 

“For your short program, something lovely - a waltz, but one with a lot of movement; spins, footwork, artistry.”

“Sounds hard,” Chris tells him cheerfully, “I’m in. And for the free?”

Victor grins, and taps his pencil against his lip thoughtfully. “A tango.”

\--

The summer passes and the season begins, and Victor’s new programs are the most difficult anyone’s skating. He’s still only eighteen, but this is his fourth year as a senior skater, and first as a defending champion. He’s got plenty left to prove, and he sinks everything he has into his routines.

Chris IM’s him after his season opener, a simple  _ wow, your new programs are amazing _ .

_ Thanks _ , Victor replies, icing his knee. He hadn’t fallen, but it had been a near thing, and it had wrenched one of the muscles to stay upright. He’d seen the replays, though, and you can hardly tell, which is, no doubt, why he still took first. It hurts nonetheless, gold medal still in the bottom of his suitcase in favor of the ice pack. 

\--

Chris presented their suggestions to his coach as his own, at Victor’s behest. While initially dubious, his coach allowed Chris to work with the Swiss team choreographer to make something that, according to the commentators at least, is “innovative and unexpected for a skater of his experience.” It’s not a medaling performance, but Chris is still sixteen, and most sixteen year olds are not ready for the podium. Nevertheless, it keeps him in the top five or six all fall, nipping at Georgi’s heels, much to Gosha’s chagrin. 

They text infrequently, what with international rates, but they email more and more, Victor’s casual feedback on performance elements morphing into various thoughts and opinions on their shared sport, while Christophe’s questions slide slowly from general skating world news to more personal gossip.

Christophe so enjoys the dance-based choreography that he starts taking regular dance classes, which consternates his coach and delights his choreographer. Victor, who hasn’t taken a dance class since he was allowed to give up ballet at thirteen, is taken with the notion, and signs up for a ballroom class for the hell of it. It turns out to be the most fun he’s had in a while, and when they meet up in Paris after Victor’s won the  **Trophée Lalique,** he takes Christophe out for dinner to thank him for the idea.

Fall passes in a blur, and then it’s the Grand Prix (Victor wins, Chris cheers), followed by Russian Nationals (Victor takes gold, Gosha takes bronze). There’s a brief break between the end of Nationals and the holidays and the beginning of Europeans, and on a day where Victor actually manages to sleep in, he wakes to an email that says “Victor, please come and stay in Switzerland with me for the holidays.”

Victor lies in his bed, laptop abandoned beside him on the duvet, and stares at his pristine, white ceiling. His mother and stepfather will be at their house in Ekaterinburg with their children, and his father is on a business trip to the states. He could go to Yakov and Lilia’s annual New Year’s soiree, but he’s honestly not sure if he’s up for either Lilia’s oh-so-perfect ballerina friends or Yakov’s old hockey buddies. Both will grab his ass when drunk, and there is always so much shouting.

He sits up, grabs for his keyboard.  _ Okay _ , he writes,  _ what day shall I come? _

\--

It’s a relatively short plane ride to Switzerland, at least compared to some of the flights Victor has to take for competition purposes. He naps, reads a little, changes planes in Paris, and then he’s arrived at his gate, deplaning and walking off into the Geneva airport. Chris had sent him directions before he’d left, and Victor had printed them off, folding them carefully and putting them in his satchel. He takes a train from the airport to downtown, then switches to a bus to take him around the bottom of the lake and up to Christophe’s house in one of the lovely residential districts of the city. 

It’s warmer in Geneva, and sunnier than back in St. Petersburg, and Victor finds himself loosening his scarf as he walks the last few blocks to the address on his now-worn print-out. It’s a welcome change; Victor loves the glittering lights of his home city in the dead of winter, the crack of the ice and the sparkling snow, but he’s not about to turn down above-freezing afternoon temperatures or a little extra sunshine on his face.

The house he arrives at is an older one, stone and somewhat imposing, but the door is open and Chris shouts enthusiastically in welcome as Victor drags his carry-on up the flagstone path toward him. Chris looks happy and comfortable in a way that’s completely different from his careful composure and cultivated bravado at competitions. His cheeks are pink and his curls are in total disarray, and Victor lets himself be hugged to within an inch of his life, giving in and hugging back as Chris chatters into his ear.

\--

He’s there for a week, heading back to Russia on the second of January, and it’s easily the most fun he’s had in years. It’s not that he never gets away - he does, especially after the season, like he did with Georgi six months ago - but it always feels like enforced idleness, like a punishment. 

With Chris, there’s something different - it’s… fun, actually, Victor thinks as he falls asleep on his fourth night. Chris is always moving, always with something new to show Victor or something that he wants them to do, but it’s never pushy, never something that Victor won’t be interested in. They’re not strangers, not at this point, but there’s no sense of forced intimacy, either - Chris is cheerfully casual, giving Victor space when he needs it or providing a distraction when it’s wanted. 

It’s impressive, really, Victor thinks, how easily Chris navigates this sort of interpersonal connection; it leaves Victor warm, but also slightly jealous. Chris’ life is made up of a friendly immediate family, a strict but jovial coach, and a coterie of agemates and friends whom he greets and texts and chatters about. Victor’s own life seems very dim and cold in comparison, and it’s not that Victor wasn’t aware that his continual pursuit of the next medal, the next event, the next title hasn’t left him much time to form the sorts of friendly bonds that Chris seems to sprout like weeds, but still. It’s one thing to know it and another to have it forcibly illustrated.

Victor puts it out of his mind; he’s good at that, and it’s served him well so far. 

The week passes like this: They sleep in until late in the morning, then eat a lazy breakfast that may as well be lunch with Chris’ family. They go on walks around the city before they inevitably end up at Chris’ rink for some ice time. They do a few hours of what is generously called “practicing” and what would be more accurately called “dicking around”, but Victor thinks that for all they’re not taking their rink time seriously, the past few days have given him a much better sense of Chris’ aptitudes and interests than watching him in competitions ever has. They walk back to the house afterward to shower and change clothes, and then go out for dinner somewhere in the city before catching a movie or going to a club. Chris’ family is upper middle class, but not what you’d call rich, and Victor loves luxury, but is a spendthrift by habit on account of being newly established in an expensive sport, so they keep it lowkey, dining at local pubs or hole-in-the-wall international restaurants where they take turns charming the waitstaff into free drinks or appetizers. 

Victor hadn’t expected the party on New Year’s Eve, but in hindsight, that was silly of him. They come back early from practice to find the house in an uproar, Chris’ mother fully dressed but his father in bare feet and an untied bowtie as they set out chairs and a sound system for the evening’s festivities. Chris and Victor dodge Chris’ younger siblings and escape upstairs to get ready, and Victor thanks his lucky stars that he’s been caught flat-footed enough times by unexpected events that he always carries a nice button-down and pair of slacks with him wherever he travels. He puts them on now, admiring the way that his dark plum shirt contrasts with the light grey wool slacks. Chris loans him a decent tie, deep pewter with flecks of midnight blue in the weft, and he braids his hair back into a shining silver coronet high off his brow. It makes him look older, he thinks, more elegant with the width of his shoulders and the length of his torso. He’s still on the thin side of slim, but it can’t be helped with the amount of exercising he does. Someday he’ll fill out more, if his father is any indication, but it hasn’t happened yet. 

Chris steps up beside him, adjusting his own forest-green tie in the mirror. He takes in Victor at a glance and shakes his head, smiling. “How can anyone ever resist you, Victor?” he asks, and Victor rolls his eyes. He flicks his glance back to the mirror and lifts his mouth into the smile he uses for all his public events.

“They can’t,” he says, and Chris just shakes his head.

\--

The party is a great success, and Victor drinks more champagne than maybe he intends, well supplied by the continually full glasses circulating on trays throughout the evening. He’s not truly what he would call  _ drunk _ by midnight, but he is definitely a little past tipsy when Chris finds him out on the back balcony staring out at the lake. 

“Victor,” Chris calls, and then stumbles as he crosses the wooden slats underfoot. He catches himself, giggling, and makes his way over to lean on the rail next to Victor.

“Aren’t you cold?” Christophe asks, his cheeks red and eyes sparkling. He looks like someone’s been running their hands through his hair, and his tie is slightly askew. 

Victor shrugs, turning back to the view. “I’m Russian,” he answers, deadpan, “we don’t get cold,” but he lets Chris lean against him to block the wind and share his warmth. 

Chris makes a disparaging noise. “That’s why you win so much,” he snorts, “you’re kin with the ice.”

A round of fireworks goes off over the lake, brilliant colors spraying up against the dark sky. The booms echo shortly after, rolling over Victor’s head like summer thunder. 

“Pretty sure my last boyfriend said the same thing,” Victor muses, then bites his lip. That had come out more bitter than he intended, but he’s too well-liquored to make a convincing joke of it. He lets it fall quietly instead, hoping Christophe will ignore it. 

“Is that what it’s like?” Christophe asks, and Victor tips his head to rest against the softness of Christophe’s curls. 

Victor hums. Another burst of fireworks illuminates the sky, streaking gold and green before dissipating into fuzzy afterimages. 

“It’s different for everyone,” he says after he’s been quiet too long, and it’s Christophe’s turn to hum in response.

“Is that how it is for  _ you _ , Victor?” he asks, and Victor’s throat tightens. He thinks of the two times he’s dated someone for longer than a couple of weeks, and the inevitability of the anger and resentment when he refused to compromise his schedule or his diet or his, well, anything, for them. He thinks of the men in the clubs, the ones who call him  _ pretty _ , and  _ sweetheart _ , and  _ kitten _ , and how they scratch the itch he has to be adored but not the longing he has to be treasured, the way they fuck him, but never love him. 

“It’s…” he starts, then pauses to think about what exactly it is that he wants to say here. Christophe is still only sixteen, for all that his birthday is in just over a month. He’s young, and Victor suspects, inexperienced. There’s no reason to taint any hopefulness, Victor tells himself, but it would also be doing him no kindness to lie about it. 

“It’s complicated,” Victor says, and feels Christophe nod against his shoulder as the sky lights itself on fire with shimmering colors. “What we do… not everyone understands it. Understands the commitment to it. And if you want to be good at it-”

“I want to be the best,” Christophe murmurs, and Victor can’t help but smile. 

“If you want to be good,” he continues, “you can’t compromise, not for anyone. And that makes it harder to have a relationship.”

“So you don’t?” Christophe asks, and he sounds faintly sad. 

Victor exhales, a puff of condensation floating in the cold night air in front of him. “Not dating,” he says, “not anymore. There are… other things.”

“Hook-ups,” Christophe says, and Victor nods, his cheek rubbing against the top of Chris’ head. 

“Yes. Sometimes. When it’s convenient.”

“The off-season?” Christophe’s voice is curious, and Victor has no idea why he’s saying all this. It’s probably some diabolical combination of the darkness and the champagne and the unexpected honesty of Christophe’s questions. 

“Mostly,” Victor agrees. “It’s easier then. But,” he sighs, “I don’t know. It’s always a gamble. Will they know who you are? If they do, is that good or bad? Are they safe to take home? Are they good in bed?” He sucks his teeth thoughtfully. “It’s hard to say if it’s worth it. At least my toys won’t sell me out to the paps.”

Christophe snorts, then hiccups, then bursts into a fit of giggles. 

“Come on,” Victor says, and turns them around, looping his arm around Christophe’s shoulders. “It’s cold. Let’s go in.

\--

He doesn’t see Christophe again until Europeans, though they text. Christophe sends pictures of his cat, and Victor sends pictures of Makkachin, and they make small talk, easy and friendly and unimportant. 

They’d both woken hungover on New Year’s Day and lounged around the house all day in their sweatpants, eating Christmas candy and too much cheese, watching movies and terrible Italian soap operas on the TV as afternoon faded into early night. In the evening, Victor had packed his suitcase without fanfare, and had left the next morning with the dawn for the flight back to his chilly but lovely apartment in Piter. 

“Is it worth it?” Christophe had asked as Victor folded the last of his clothes and slipped his book into his satchel. Christophe’s eyes were wide and serious, lashes draped against his cheek and making him look even younger. 

Victor had nodded without pause, thinking of the feeling of the ice under his feet, the weightlessness of spinning through the air, the cheers of the crowd as a medal was lowered over his neck. 

“It is to me,” he answered, “it’s worth everything to me.”

\--

A month later he finds Christophe sitting in the locker room after warm-ups on the third day of Europeans. They don’t take the ice for another hour, but Christophe’s done well enough on the first day to be skating in the last group for his Free program, along with Victor and Georgi. He’s in his costume already, and Victor can see the nerves, subtle though Christophe manages to keep them. 

“You did very well in the short,” Victor tells him, settling down next to him on the bench. Christophe looks up, startled, then smiles warmly. 

“You think so?” 

“Mm. You’ll want to make sure to pull your arms in a little sooner on your axel, but your footwork has really come along. I-”

“Vitya.” Yakov’s sharp voice cuts through the dull roar of locker room chatter, and Victor turns to see Yakov looking even more dour and pinched than usual. He waves a stern hand in Victor’s direction. “Come with me. Now. It’s important.”

Victor blinks. “Sorry, Christophe,” he says, and pats him on the shoulder. “I’ll be right back.” He waits for Christophe’s sympathetic smile to echo his own, then stands and follows Yakov out of the door. 

\--

He’s not sure how long it is before Christophe finds him. He’s not sure why it’s Christophe who’s found him, if he’s honest, but it is. The curtain of the changing cubicle draws back and those wide green eyes are staring at him, and all Victor can do is blink, making no effort to wipe the tears that are currently running down his face.

“ _ Victor _ ,” Christophe breathes, “what’s wrong?”

Victor just shakes his head. He doesn’t think he can force words out of his throat right now without sobbing, and he doesn’t want to do that. Not here, not now. What he needs is to pull himself together, not fall further apart.

“Is someone sick? Hurt?” Christophe reaches out to touch Victor’s hand. “How can I help?”

Victor takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and willing his voice to steadiness. It nearly works. 

“It’s Makkachin,” he hears himself say, the sound of it echoing in his ears like gravel in a tin can. “She ate something she shouldn’t. She’s in surgery now.”

“Oh, Victor,” Christophe says, his voice full of sympathy. “When do you leave? Do you need help with your things?”

Victor opens his eyes to stare at the boy in front of him. “Leave?” he asks, incredulity coloring his tone. “Why would I leave? I have to skate.”

Christophe’s eyebrows draw together in a sharp frown. “Skate? But don’t you want to be with Makkachin? To make sure she’s okay?”

“Of course I do,” Victor answers, voice shaky, “but I can’t just walk away from a skate. I can’t just throw over a competition for a  _ dog _ .” He clutches his fists into the fabric of his warm-up pants to still the trembling of his fingers.

“Why on earth not?” Christophe throws his hands in the air, face clear in its exasperation. “She’s your family. What is one competition?”

It’s Victor’s turn to frown. “I’m the defending champion,” he answers, his expression blank. “This is what I  _ do _ . I can’t just…  _ walk away _ .”

“Victor,” Christophe says, his voice deep and serious as he kneels down in front of Victor’s sock feet. He’s so close, and Victor can’t see anything except his grass-green eyes and glowing curls reflecting in the fluorescent lights of the locker room. He’s almost lurid in how bright he shines, Victor thinks idly, such a contrast to Victor’s own chilly silver and blue. “Victor, I want you to think about it.  _ Really _ think about it.” Christophe puts his hands on Victor’s knees, the touch grounding him into his body where it sits on the cold cement. “If you want to go back to Russia and be with Makkachin, I will call the cab  _ myself _ . We will walk out of here right now, skating be damned.”

Christophe’s voice is as fierce as the look in his eyes, and Victor can’t help but hiccup a laugh. He nods, and closes his eyes, trying to think. Christophe is right, he  _ could _ leave. Technically, he could. People do, for various reasons. He could withdraw from the competition, he could leave Yakov behind, get a redeye back to St. Petersburg, take a cab from the airport to the vet…

He sighs. It’s tempting, but unrealistic. There’d be no direct flights on this short notice; by the time he managed to get there through however many transfers and layovers he would have to take, it’d be nearly as late as if he just takes his scheduled flight first thing in the morning. And even if he left now, and got lucky with flights and taxis, he wouldn’t be there in time to take her home. He would still get there too late, and he would have a black mark on his season for it, and he wouldn’t even be the first face she sees when she wakes up. 

“No,” he says softly, and shakes his head. “I’ll stay. I’ll skate.”

“If you change your mind…” Christophe starts, and Victor lays a hand on Chris’ where it’s still pressed to his knee. 

“Thank you,” he says, squeezing Christophe’s hand. “I’ll let you know.”

\--

It’s hours later when the knock comes on his door. The competition is finished, the medals handed out. Victor has stood through the ceremony, sat through Yakov’s disappointed lecture, made his exhausted way back to the hotel. He’s showered and put on his pajamas, shoved his dirty costumes and warm-up clothes into his suitcase. Probably he should be packing his toiletries, since his flight is at ass-o’clock in the morning, but he doesn’t feel like it right now. Instead, he is draped across the double bed in his room clicking through bad slavic reality TV.

He wants to ignore the knock, but it comes again, so he rolls off the bed and pads over to the door. It won’t be Yakov, he’ll be drowning his sorrows down in the bar, and it’s not Georgi, because he’s out with the girlfriend of the moment who happens to be a Russian pairs skater, and so is also here to compete. Room service already brought him his meal, and Victor hasn’t asked for anything else.

The head of curls in front of him is still damp when Victor opens the door, dark with water from Christophe’s post-return shower. 

“Victor,” he says softly, “can I come in?”

Victor unlatches the chain and opens the door, walking over to settle back on the bed. He’s not sure what Christophe wants, but he’s too tired to bother trying to get rid of him, even if his plans for the night involve feeling sorry for himself until he falls asleep.

He crosses over to the bed and climbs back on it, flicking the TV to mute.

“How’s Makkachin?” Chris asks without preamble, climbing up to sit on the bed next to him. 

“She’s okay,” Victor says with a tired smile. “Yakov’s wife brought her home and will keep her until tomorrow for me. They said she didn’t do any real damage to herself; they caught it in time.”

“Oh,  _ good _ ,” Christophe breathes, and slumps against the headboard. “I’m so glad.”

“Me too,” Victor says bluntly, and leans back until he’s resting next to Christophe, pressed up against the faux wood. “At least something good came out of it.”

Chris frowns. “What do you mean, Victor? You still medaled.”

“ _ Bronze _ ,” Victor scoffs, too tired to bother trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. “I lost the title. Now I’m an underdog going into Worlds. I broke my streak, and for nothing. Makkachin’s fine, and even if she weren’t, I couldn’t have done anything about it.”

“For  _ nothing _ ?” Christophe turns to stare at him. “Victor, you thought one of the most important beings in your world might  _ die _ , and you still managed to  _ medal _ at an international skating event.”

“I underperformed,” Victor says, and he can hear how mulish he sounds as he folds his arms across his chest. “If I hadn’t already been in first after the short by as much as I was, I would have come in  last  in our group.”

“ _ Victor _ ,” Christophe groans, reaching over to knock his fist lightly on Victor’s head. “Earth to Victor, you are actually a  _ human _ . You are allowed to have  _ feelings _ .” Victor swats his hand away. “Sometimes those feelings might even affect what you do.”

“They’re not supposed to,” Victor mumbles, and Christophe bumps him with a shoulder.

“Shove over,” he says, and Victor does, letting Christophe push him down the bed until they’re both lying on top of the covers, pressed together from shoulder to ankle. 

“It’s okay,” Chris tells him, taking his hand as they watch the ridiculous antics on the TV. “It’s okay, Victor.”

Victor closes his eyes and tries to believe him.

\--

  
  


Makkachin welcomes him home with a clean bill of health and strict orders from the vet to monitor her food and water intake for the next ten days, and to keep human food strictly out of her reach. She barks happily as he wraps his arms around her and cries into her fur, then drags him over to the door to get her leash. His neighbor, Katya, who checks on Makka while he’s gone and walks her is full of apologies about the incident, but Victor’s just grateful that she found Makka in time, so they agree to never speak of it again. 

Worlds comes and goes (Victor, gold; Georgi, silver; Christophe, 5th), and it’s the end of season again. Victor hammers another nail into the wall for this season’s medals, next to the ones from last year and the year before. Yakov locks down the rink and Victor’s nutritionist and trainer email him their packets of information for his summer regimine of healthy eating and low-impact workouts. 

It’s as dreadfully boring to look forward to as it always is, but Georgi has just broken up with the pairs skater and Chris wheedled his parents into two weeks away from home. 

Victor books three tickets to Koktobel, and smiles as he emails the confirmations. Gosha and Chris, he thinks, will get along just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Makkachin does exactly what she does in the show, and eats something she shouldn't. She's fine, but Victor doesn't know that for a while.
> 
> Comments are love, uwu. Find me on twitter/tumblr/social media of your choice at @zjofierose, or come scream about YOI in [this server here](https://discord.gg/TYMxcAB).


End file.
